


Ballet of violence

by Sorah



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Army, Captain John Watson, M/M, Military Kink, Sherlock is younger, World War II, balletlock
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-18 05:48:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8151221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorah/pseuds/Sorah
Summary: Sherlock is 17 in 1939. He's a ballet dancer. He's a drug addict. His closest connection with the army is the secret magazines he stores under his mattress, in a fancy house, far from the poor bits of London. When the war strikes, he is put in a battlefield with a gun in his hand, under the command of a certain Captain Watson.





	1. Chapter 1

The room was cold. Far too cold. There was an actual skeleton turned to the wall. He could identify a small fracture in the cranium, not likely caused by bad transportation, but probably the cause of death. Gunshot. Sherlock was absolutely distracted by it. But first he had been distracted by the small cabinet, with glass doors, protecting a dozens of small glass shots, behind the desk. He wondered what kind of drugs the army kept. And he saw, inside the cabinet, a framed picture of a woman and a child. He had gotten up to look at it more carefully. Then his eyes traveled all the way to the bed and the equipment behind the bed, not to mention the framed honor mentions on the side wall. It was boring, to say the least. And that was when the skeleton caught his eye. 

Mycroft had one. A complete human skeleton. It was bought by his mother when Mycroft considered the idea of going to med school. He was 13 and he memorized every bone in a matter of 3 days. Sherlock took 15. He got called “slow” and “dumb”. Mycroft, of course, gave up the idea of caring for another living human being. But the skeleton was still in his bedroom.  Sherlock kept stealing the head. Mycroft kept finding it in unusual places, like his wardrobe or in the toilet. However, when he put it in the silvery cabinet, the maid found it first, and Sherlock had to apologize for traumatizing the poor woman.

The skeleton in the doctor’s office was more interesting, though. It had a gunshot wound. And osteoporosis. The bones were brownish, probably because the person who prepared it didn’t cook it right when removing the flesh.

_ “Don’t say anything stupid. It’s all arranged. You’ll get an officer position. You’ll stay way back.” s _ aid Mycroft, a few minutes before he got called to the medical office.

 

Then the doctor came in. He didn’t look like military. Well, apart from the straight stance, the shaved hair and the military clothes. He did stay in the city, though. So military, but living like a civilian. He was looking at his files when he stood in front of the skeleton. The badge on his clothes said “Dr. Wale”. He raised his eyes to Sherlock, and then down, analyzing head and toes. His hand wrote something in the file.

“Mr. Holmes.” the man muttered, putting the file down. “I got a very important call telling me you’re a very decent man and will honour us with your bravery.”

Sherlock pursed his lips and shrugged.

“That sounds correct, I suppose.”

Greatest lie of the night. Two weeks ago, Sherlock got in a fight in a very not respectable bar. He was high on heroin and punched a guy in the guts. The guy thought someone else did it, so he punched the man on the left. It started a huge brawl, making the bar even less respectable now a days. Sherlock escaped through a window. He wasn’t decent. Or brave. Decent and braveness were dull and stupid, respectively.

The doctor gave him a forced smile. The wrinkles in his cheek seemed used to that fake smile. A whole life of faked smiles. “Clothes off, please.”

“You won’t offer me a glass of wine first?” Sherlock joked. For some reason, he thought that joking with this doctor would be alright. He was wrong. As he always was, when it comes to being an asshole to the wrong person.

The doctor kept the same fake smile.

“Clothes off, Mr. Holmes.”

Sherlock shrugged again and started stripping. The man kept looking at him. “Would you mind giving me some privacy?” Sherlock asked, his hands tugging the bands of his pants. The doctor ignored him completely, as Sherlock expected. Once his clothes were all on the floor - and the doctor had eyed the messed clothes with disgust - the army man stepped forward, watching every detail of Sherlock’s body.

“I assume that given the very important call I received, I’m expected to overlook the needle marks in your arm.” said the doctor, walking around Sherlock. “But you do have strong legs. Can you please stand on the tip of your toes?”

Sherlock definitely could. He could spend a whole day on the tip of his toes. And he was proud of it. He could walk and run and dance on the tip of his toes, with ease. Even when he was high. So he did. He went up a few centimeters, standing solely on the tip of his toes, his feet arched perfectly to give him stance and balance.

“I’ll assume that I’m also expected to ignore that you’re a ballet dancer, Mrs. Holmes. Judging by the calluses on your feet, a professional one. It’s not informed in the file. I wonder why.”Sherlock went down instantly. His heart skipped a beat. When Mycroft said “don’t do anything stupid”, he probably meant this.

“It’s alright. I understand. Your important family is afraid that their little boy who likes to dance will die or lose a leg in the fight. We get many of those here. But not all of them have the money your family does.” said the doctor, walking back to this desk, where he took Sherlock’s file again and started writing on it. “I was told to accept you as an officer. Second Lieutenant, preferably. So you can stand back in the fight. Protected. Go home with all your fancy little fingers untouched.”.

Sherlock licked his lips and looked down. Mycroft’s words did come up in his head again. But this was stronger than him.

“So you like deducing people” said Sherlock. He could imagine his brother pinching the bridge of his nose if he was there. “You correctly deduced that I’m a ballet dancer, given the calluses in my feet and how I stand on the tip of my toes. Apparently you also deduced that by the formation of muscles in my legs, which aren’t very common in drug users. You obviously deduced I take injectable drugs. That was very good, indeed.”

The doctor looked pleased and hesitant at the same time. He didn’t know if Sherlock was being ironic or not. So he didn’t know how to answer. Sherlock used the silence on his favor.

“I like to deduce people as well. Would you let me try?” he asked, although he didn’t plan on waiting for permission. “You’ve been to Palestine, two years ago.”

“Great deduction. It’s on my goddamn wall, faggot.” interrupted the doctor.

“That was when your wife had your son.” Sherlock continued, unabated. “He was born prematurely, or so she said. You never really believed that. The baby was big and healthy. And then you never made the calculations, but you knew, of course you knew. You loved her, so you ignored it. The nagging feeling. You loved your wife and you loved your son. But the thought was there and you can’t kill an idea. You keep their framed pictures in the drugs cabinet, not on your desk. So you don’t look at them all the time. You have to look back in order to see them through a glass. But it’s not really both of them, is it? It’s actually just the child. The dimples. Your wife doesn’t have them. You don’t have them. You’re a doctor, you know that the dimples are caused by a genetic trait. So one of the parents has to have them. If it’s not you, nor your wife, than it has to be the boy’s father. And the boy’s father is not you. And I further deduce that you know who’s the boy’s father. Something caught my eye when I entered the room. Your skeleton. The one right behind you. It has a gunshot wound.  Entrance wound, but no exit wound. Small, exactly like the standard military pistol Enfield 2. And it’s an old male skeleton, given the size of the hips and the femur, and the inner side of it. It has osteoporosis. What are the chances that a man who’s died with a gunshot to the head would have time to say they want to donate their body to science? Exactly zero. Oh, the anonymous body, you may say. But the hole was not filled with resin, like would be standard procedure in case of use for science. Also, they don’t take old people’s skeletons, because it has degeneration, like this one has. I also noticed that the person who prepared the skeleton didn’t avoid oxidation of the bone, giving it its brownish color. Terrible for science. So someone who doesn’t do that for a living did it. But still, with some knowledge of how to dissolve the flesh and prepare a body. The basic theoretical but not practical knowledge you get in a med school. If a professional had done this, the body would have been discarded, because of the terrible job. But the person who did it really wanted this specific skeleton. Now what type of crazy maniac would kill their friend and keep the body in their room? Well, the addicted type who was cheated by his wife and keeps 10 bottles of opium and morphine in their cabinet, in a city clinic, where it is rarely needed, and who thought it would be a great idea to put the body of its victim in its clinic so no one would know where it came from. Hidden in plain sight. Neat. Also, it takes one addict to recognize the other.”

 

And that’s why Sherlock was in the British Expeditionary Force, sent to the Franco-Belgian border in mid-September of 1939, along the worst squad that Britain ever saw, with nearly no weapon or training at all, and no officer title. A simple altered file and no money was able to pay his position in the military. It could be worse, though. He could think of a few things worse than being surrounded by army men.

For example, there could be no Captain Watson.


	2. Chapter 2

The British Expeditionary Force was the first military force that was put on the road when the war begun. So the biggest portion of the young men of Britain were sent to the BEF. Sherlock Holmes was included.

The Captain John H. Watson wasn’t one of these young men. He enlisted long before the war begun, by his own choice. He had shown great ability in combat and a good aim under pressure. He had tolerated the hardest training and an incredible tolerance to pain and stressful situations. He escalated quickly, and he was always the official’s choice when the time to be promoted came. It was said that he would be the next major of the regiment.

John Watson could carry a wounded man on his back through a battlefield defending himself with a pistol, bring the man back to the medical tent safely and, with steady hands - which was his most remarkable ability - make a curative, first aid procedures, and even suture a wound. All that after an adrenaline discharge of risking his own life.

He caught people’s attention quickly.

One of these people was Major James Sholto, his direct superior.

When the war begun, Lieutenant Watson was called to the Major’s office, still in Birmingham. He hadn’t slept the night before, and the night before that one. He hadn’t slept a whole night since the day the war was declared. But he wasn’t afraid of the war. He wasn’t afraid of being called to combat. He was afraid of being left behind to take care of the soldiers who’d come back too soon. The severely wounded.

So when the letter came, he knew he was about to be designed to some battalion, put on the road, fight germans. He got anxious, and he didn’t sleep for two days. He knew the Major - far too well - and the Major knew him. So he trusted the Major to send him to the Royal Medical Forces. The greatest honor he could achieve. He’d become captain soon, he’d show his abilities, and he’d become Major someday, before the war ends. He had the whole thing in his head.

 

The Major James Sholto was a tall, blonde man. Square jaws, strong stance. John was always looking up at him, in every way possible. He was collected, calm, but strong and disciplined. So John knew there was something wrong when he entered his office. Most of his things were already gone - so he was obviously being sent away. But the Major remained there. John saluted him at sight, and the Major saluted back.

“Lieutenant Watson, please, take a sit.” he said, politely.

There was a map on the table. A huge map with a few pieces on it. They were marked with battalion names and army forces. John identified the Royal Medical Force strategically put in specific battlefields, accessible for every other battalion and special forces. The idea was that the medical forces could get anywhere and rescue every soldier, without being in the front, without being a target. John was sure he was going to be part of that, somewhere. Maybe in Belgium? Or perhaps in France, with the French special forces?

“Watson, as you know… we’re not ready for this war.” said Major Sholto, ignoring the map in front of him. “We have very few soldiers who are really ready to fight. We have less than 300 thousand men enlisted. And now that the newcomers are arriving, we have over 200 thousand men who have never seen a gun. Or ever wanted to see a gun. And they have guns in their hands. Well, the lucky ones do, because we don’t have guns for everyone. On the other side, the germans have over a million soldiers, trained for battle.”

John frowned slightly. He was aware of the lack of investment that the british empire had put on their soldiers for the past 20 years. The Navy had the best ones. The army had nothing. It was an old story. He didn’t know why the Major was retelling him that.

“And you, Lieutenant Watson, are one of the few good men we have.” he finally said, making John’s heart beat faster. He was about to be sent to the medical forces. He knew it. “Last year, the Expeditionary Force was created to receive these newcomers. We’re sending them to the frontier of Belgium and France, and they’ll be needing all medical assistance they can have. We’re planning to join the french army there, and get some supplies from them. Currently, they’re marching with pipes as guns. Only the officers have actual guns. And believe me when I say, they’re safer without guns. For their own protection.”

John didn’t like where this was going. He was going to be sent to the medical forces to get behind the Expeditionary Force. They were targets. They were the weakest army. Non trained, non equipped, non experienced. There would be thousands of fatalities. And no one would pay attention to the saved ones. They were dispensable.

“Sir, you are planning to send me to the Medical Forces in the French-Belgian frontier, is that so? I could be more useful in France. I could conclude my training in the battlefield. I can fight, you know I can.”

The Major took a deep breath and looked down at the map.

“No, Lieutenant Watson, I’m not gonna send you to the Medical Forces. You’re coming with me.”

John frowned. No Medical Forces? He was a doctor. He had been trained for this. To save lives. And to survive while doing so.

“But, sir, I thought….”

“As I said, Lieutenant Watson, we have very few good men, and you’re one of them. Luckily, you’re not a Major yet, so I can still put you where I want. I’m going to the Expeditionary Force, and I need a man I can fully trust to train these newcomers and look after them. There will be people wounded in training, and I need a doctor in the field. The Colonel gave me full freedom of choice to choose a Captain to follow me. And I gave him your name. You’re the man I can trust, Watson.”

John’s hand closed in a fist. He didn’t say a word for a long time. Neither did the Major. He had no idea of what to say now. The Expeditionary Force was the worst battalion he could be sent to. But he was being sent as a Captain of a small infantry. So what to say about that? His dream of going to the Medical Forces was buried nine feet deep into the ground. There was no turning back now.

“ _James…”_ whispered John, begging.

“ _John_.” replied the Major, also begging. “I _need_ you.”

  
John’s hand relaxed. His whole body relaxed. He nodded and saluted the major. The Captain John H. Watson of the British Expeditionary Forces left the office and went back home to pack his belongings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very sorry for any mistakes with ranks and details of battalions and that sort of stuff. I'm doing lots of research but eh, there's always someone who knows something you had no idea about. If you know nothing about the British Army of the second world war, this should be belieavable.

**Author's Note:**

> So, in the army there's two types of careers (as most people know). If you go to military academy, you're an officer. If you enlist because you have to, you're non-commissioned (the highest you can get is sergeant). However, when there's a war and every young man has to enlist, rich families often pay for their sons to become officers instead of regular soldiers. These officers often don't go into battlefield.


End file.
